


what are friends for

by augustbird



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Established Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-02-20 17:43:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2437406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/augustbird/pseuds/augustbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>friends are for writing you fic.<br/>partially to collect all the stuff i write for friends and partially because i feel like fandom needs more established relationship futurefic fluff.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Lou - Explicit - metal arm porn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mici (noharlembeat)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/noharlembeat/gifts).



> friends are for writing you fic.  
> partially to collect all the stuff i write for friends and partially because i feel like fandom needs more established relationship futurefic fluff.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What it says on the tin: metal arm porn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is for [lou](http://bisouette.tumblr.com/) because [reasons](http://augustbird.tumblr.com/post/98099158003).

Three shootouts in Gibraltar back to back to back with barely a moment to catch his breath. Steve's running on pure adrenaline and frustration--Natasha's voice in his ear that he's not drawing them out fast enough. He's pissed, yeah, but keeps his irritation to himself as he leads the HYDRA agents to the rendezvous point.

Steve runs on pure instinct these days, noting the angle of guns and projecting trajectories, mapping out the lay of the environment with a single look. He's fucking excellent at what he does, even if it involves being the bait and taking fire as he leads overconfident HYDRA agents down to the docks where SHIELD's got submarines trained on HYDRA ships and enough agents to take out an entire army.

A bullet nicks his arm. Steve ignores the sting of pain as he keeps moving forward, dodging from dumpsters to doorways for cover. He hears a distant crack of sniper rifle over the higher drone of the handguns they're using to shoot at him.

"Sorry pal," Bucky's says, "Didn't think he'd be stupid enough to shoot when there's three other agents in front of him. Your arm okay?"

Steve grunts, calculating his next move.

"Too many civilians to the left but there's a low hanging fire escape halfway down the block on the right. It's low enough that it shouldn't be a problem for your friends."

"How're they looking back there?"

"Lagging a little," Bucky's voice is warm, like he's holding back a laugh, "Not all of us have super endurance like you."

"I don't remember you complaining," Steve says without thinking as he makes it to the fire escape.

"Not at all." Steve can hear the grin in Bucky's voice. "Careful, they're gaining."

Steve heaves himself up the ladder, two rungs at a time. "When this is over," he grits out, "We're going on vacation."

_____

By the time the HYDRA agents are rounded up and the last of the operatives have been smoked out of the headquarters, Steve's been on his feet for nearly twenty-two hours straight. Hill takes one look at him when he drops by the warehouse where SHIELD's set up their major communications hub and says, "Go to sleep, Captain. You can debrief in the morning."

And because his life would just be too normal if they gave him a hotel room, he's stationed in some yacht for the night. Possibly one that they took from Tony Stark, if the decor is anything to go by. Steve shuts the door after himself, locks it, and tries to will himself into relaxing.

It's always like this after difficult missions--running on fumes and adrenaline, the sort of jittery energy borrowed from tomorrow's exhaustion. Steve sets his shield aside and starts to strip out of his dirtied clothing on the way to the bathroom. Blood's crusted around the nick on his shoulder. He doesn't make a sound when he peels the fabric off, but it starts to bleed again.

He steps in under the shower and watches the water go dark with dirt before clearing out. He lets out a long sigh and reaches for the shampoo just as someone knocks on the open door.

"Hi." It's Bucky.

"Do you know where the towels are?" Steve asks, squirting shampoo into the palm of his hand.

"Hmm," Bucky says, sliding the shower door back and stepping into the stall. "No." He crowds Steve against the cool tile and tilts his head up for a kiss, tongue sliding slowly against Steve's lower lip. Steve forgets about the shampoo. The water hits Bucky's shoulders and Steve pushes his hand through Bucky's hair, opening his mouth.

Bucky spans his hands against Steve's ribcage, slides them down his side until they're resting on Steve's waist. He presses himself flush against Steve's damp skin, the heat of his cock against Steve's hip. He pulls away from Steve's mouth minutely, breathing in the same shower-humid air that Steve is. He grins and touches his nose to Steve's, murmuring, "Hi."

"God," Steve says, torn between the stupid rush of affection that washes over him and his sudden insistent need to roll his hips against Bucky. Bucky kisses the corner of his jaw with just a hint of teeth and a lot of tongue, moving up towards that one spot near his ear that gets Steve every fucking time. He holds Steve against the wall, doesn't give his hips an inch to move, just shifts so that his hard cock is lined up against Steve's, cradled against his hip.

"Bucky," Steve says, except it comes out as sort of undignified whine. Bucky laughs against his skin and lifts his hand--the metal one--trailing his fingers slowly across Steve's hip, cool metal across Steve's skin. And then he's just moving two fingers down Steve's cock, the lightest of touches with a hard suck at his neck that would have left a mark on any ordinary man and Steve will actually literally die if Bucky keeps teasing him like this.

Bucky drops so he's eye level with Steve's cock, licking briefly at the water collected on his bottom lip before and taking a hold of it, the thumb of his metal hand sliding along the bottom of Steve's dick like he's petting the damn thing. He kisses the tip with his closed mouth, practically nuzzling. Bucky's other hand moves across Steve's ass, squeezing lightly, before he's licking delicately around the head of Steve's cock with the tip of his tongue--water coming down on his forehead, caught in his eyelashes as he tilts his head back to look up at Steve.

Steve stares down at Bucky, the glistening of his tongue against Steve's cock caught in the dim light, pre-come smearing against Bucky's lips and mingling with droplets from the shower as he pulls off with an obscene sound. And he can't help it--can't help but reach down to cradle Bucky's jaw, thumb swiping over Bucky's lower lip and there's something that spreads bright in his chest when Bucky leans into the touch, moves his mouth off Steve's cock for a moment to press a kiss to Steve's wrist. Steve lets out a shaky breath.

Bucky grins--achingly familiar in a way that's rarely present these days on the other side of the century. Steve loves all of Bucky--the sarcastic, the quiet parts, the silent baggage that they've never really talked about--but there's a forever part of him that fell in love with a stupid boy from Brooklyn in a too-small apartment who could smile like a dirty promise and sunshine all in the same. He takes Steve's hand by the wrist and licks against the heel leading up to the thumb, traces the web between thumb and forefinger with his tongue, nips at it lightly with his teeth. And Steve can't help it, he slips his thumb into Bucky's mouth, Bucky's tongue pressing back up against the pad of his finger, his eyes still on Steve's face while Steve breath hitches through his open mouth.

Bucky closes his eyes and takes Steve's entire thumb into his mouth, tongue lightly tracing against the front of Steve's thumb. He pulls off and presses a kiss to Steve's palm, the flat of his tongue dragging against Steve's skin. Steve slips two fingers into Bucky's mouth and Bucky lets him, closes his lips around them and takes the whole length of them like it's Steve's cock.

"God," Steve murmurs, eyes wide. Bucky curls the metal hand around Steve's cock so gently that there's barely any pressure at all. Steve makes a low whimpering sound, the warm metal of Bucky's thumb brushing over the slit of his cock and smearing the precome all over. Bucky lets go of Steve's fingers with a friendly nip and then he's back to licking at the head of Steve's cock, soft swipes of his tongue that are driving Steve crazy.

"Bucky," Steve tries his hardest not to whine but his voice breaks in the middle when Bucky suddenly takes more of him. His hips drive forward of their own accord but Bucky pins him down with his arm across Steve's hips, just the slightest bit of teeth against the bottom of his cock serving as a warning not to move. Bucky's head bobs, his eyelashes lowered in concentration as he takes more and more of Steve, pulling back every once in a while to take steady breaths through his nose while Steve clutches uselessly at the tile behind him, half-gasping a stream of incoherent thoughts, "Like that, yeah, like that, god, Bucky--"

Bucky has his nose buried in the wet curls at the base of Steve's cock--farther than Steve's ever seen him take it and Steve might actually just die--when he starts humming real low, the vibrations traveling right through Steve's cock as he moves his head. And just when Steve can't take it any more, Bucky swallows around him, looking right up into Steve's face--Steve tries to muffle the scream that wants to tear out of him but it comes out of him anyway, an undignified sound that makes Bucky tighten his grip on Steve's thighs and take him as deep as he can go, milk Steve's cock for all it's worth.

Bucky rises back to his feet and kisses him, opens his mouth and lets Steve taste himself on his tongue. His fingers dig into the short hairs at the back of Steve's head and he pulls himself flush against Steve, the full weight of his erection hot against Steve's belly.

Steve gropes around for a moment but manages to shut off the shower without pulling away from Bucky. Bucky makes a low noise and drags him in closer, rubbing his cock minutely against Steve's shower-slick skin. "Come on," Steve murmurs against Bucky's mouth and maneuvers them out of the shower stall and across the bathroom. But the moment they exit, Bucky slams Steve against the wall, hands squeezing Steve's ass, sliding down the curve of his backside and back up again as he bites at the corner of Steve's mouth, hot breath against Steve's cheek. Steve lifts a leg and Bucky catches his thigh, shifts the metal arm so that he's sliding two fingers behind Steve's balls. Steve shudders as Bucky touches him there, head tilted back against the wall and adam's apple jumping as Bucky circles his hole, the blunt metal fingers breaching him just the tiniest bit. Steve squeezes his eyes shut and breathes through his mouth, his cock already stirring again.

"I never knew how much you liked this," Bucky says as he traces around Steve's hole again. Steve opens his eyes and catches Bucky watching him, mouth parted, intent on the expression on Steve's face as he presses in again with his finger.

Steve tries to say, "Shut it, Barnes," but all the words come out too breathy. 

Bucky smirks and presses him against the wall, kissing him hard. "Got something that you'll like more," he breathes and it's an awful line, really truly terrible except Steve's not laughing at all--he's squirming under Bucky's hands because god he wants it, he wants it in him now and Bucky's not helping with the way he's not even touching Steve's ass any more.

Steve drags Bucky with him as he makes his way blindly out of the goddamn tiny hallway and into an actual room with maybe an actual fucking bed--but they've gone the wrong way and ended up in the kitchen instead. Bucky heaves Steve up on the granite countertop and Steve's hand goes flying to steady himself, sweeping a glass or two off the other end of the counter to go smashing on the floor. Neither of them pay any attention--Steve's hands are fisted in Bucky's hair, tongue in Bucky's mouth, legs wrapped around Bucky's hips.

"I gotta find--" Bucky says against Steve's mouth before Steve catches Bucky's lower lip, breathes once and loosens his grip on Bucky's hair. Bucky opens a cabinet behind him without looking.

"Left," Steve directs, fingers digging lightly into Bucky's scalp as Bucky gropes for anything at all to prep Steve. "Up." Bucky's fingers close around the bottle of extra virgin olive oil and Steve drags him back down for a kiss.

Bucky fumbles with the bottle for a while before making a frustrated noise and smashing the neck of it against the counter with his metal hand. He dumps the oil on the countertop and tosses the broken bottle across the room before swiping some oil up with his hand--way more than enough--

Steve lets out a shaky little sigh as Bucky eases a finger into him, two fingers. Except--

"Can you--" Steve breathes, "--Buck, use your left--" The sentence breaks in the middle as Bucky obliges, tracing cool metal fingertips against the inside of Steve's thigh until he reaches where his other fingers are buried inside of Steve. Bucky pulls away and Steve has to support himself on the counter, spreading his legs wider and stifling a moan as he watches the shine of dexterous steel disappear inside himself.

"Fuck," Bucky says, looking between the way that Steve's opening up for him and the blissed out expression on Steve's face, "Jesus Steve, do you have any idea what you do to me?"

Steve shifts on Bucky's fingers and makes a pleased sound. Bucky tries to add another finger but Steve's too tight--his breath hitches with the sharp burn. Bucky leans forward and kisses Steve's slack mouth, pulling his fingers out slowly as Steve hears himself whining lowly in a way he didn't think he was capable of.

But he slips off the counter and turns, pushes his bare ass up against Bucky's leaking cock. Bucky doesn't need any other invitation--his cock briefly slides against the cleft of Steve's ass before the blunt head of his cock pushes at Steve's hole. Steve pushes back, clutching at the counter, feeling Bucky slowly fill him up and relaxing against the intrusion.

Bucky runs his hands down Steve's sides one he pushes himself fully into Steve. Steve's head is bowed and he's trying to remember how to breathe when Bucky kisses his spine and closes his hand around Steve's erection.

Steve pushes back as much as Bucky pushes into him and they fall into a rhythm, Bucky's hand firm on his cock, moving at a touch slower and driving Steve goddamn crazy. His fingers dig into the counter, legs spread wide as Bucky fucks into him, pulling out just enough to rock the head of his cock against Steve's prostate--enough to the point where Steve dimly hears himself making the most desperate of noises, begging Bucky to fuck him harder. Bucky starts to pound into him, fingers bruising Steve's hips as he drives forward.

It's been building the entire time, warmth pooling at the base of his spine, pulling from every sensation and pulsing into something bigger every time Bucky moves against him. He can feel the rush of it coming, barely has time to brace himself before he comes without anyone's hand on his cock, the force of it overwhelming.

Bucky comes a few moments later with a nearly silent sobbing groan, his forehead against Steve's spine, hands on Steve's hips still. They stay there for a moment, Bucky breathing lightly against Steve's back before he pulls out.

Steve turns towards him and cups the back of his neck, drawing him in for a soft kiss. Bucky smiles against Steve's lips and pulls away for just a moment to lean his forehead against Steve's. Steve smiles back--just as Bucky wipes his oily hand on Steve's thigh.

"Oh--come on, Buck," Steve says, pulling away and making a face.

"Looks like you'll have to take another shower," Bucky replies, grinning. "Want me to soap your back?"


	2. Mici - Teen - Steve proposing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha's cat loves Bucky more than Steve. Steve doesn't know how to properly propose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's [Mici](http://eggsac.tumblr.com/)'s birthday!! She prompted me with [this great song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmGkIqu-mpc). Happy last four minutes of your birthday Mici!

Bucky doesn't pick up the phone when Steve calls on the landline and he doesn't pick up when Steve calls his cell either--which meant that Bucky was probably down at the community center. The quinjet is somewhere over Rhode Island, set to descend in fifteen minutes and Steve is still covered in the ashy debris of blown up cinderblocks. He could use a shower.

Thirty minutes later, the quinjet descends onto the roof of Avengers tower. Steve hums as he strips out of his uniform and watches the water turn dark with soot and dirt. He pulls on a light hoodie and dark wash jeans--with a baseball cap and a slouch, he can disappear into the crowd.

He declines Tony's offer of a car (it's nearing rush hour) and ends up standing near a mother with her stroller on the Q train. She's talking on her phone--something something new kale diet--but the baby keeps looking up at Steve. Steve makes faces and the baby smiles and waves its arms at him. He has three hours of after-action report and an excruciatingly boring debriefing to look forward to but he's going home after two whole weeks, going in the direction of one Bucky Barnes and running on residual adrenaline and anticipation.

Bucky's playing basketball with a group of neighborhood kids. He's stripped out of his jacket, metal arm gleaming in the late-afternoon sun. Steve leans up against the chain link fence, watching Bucky toss the ball to Luis and run down the court. Luis finds an opening and tosses it back to Bucky who dunks it into the basket, silver fingers splayed.

"Cheating!" five twelve year old boys chorus, but they sound pleased. Bucky laughs, makes a fist and kisses the back of his left hand as he tosses the ball to Kyle on the other team. He catches sight of Steve and his face lights up--a smile breaking across his face as he jogs over to where Steve is.

"Hey," Bucky says as he gets closer. "Thought you were going to be in until tonight."

"Hey yourself," Steve says, smiling back. Bucky leans in, it's the twenty-first century, and Steve kisses him through the fence, fingers curling around the bit of Bucky's face he can reach. 

Eight pre-teen boys yell, "Ewww!" at them, before immediately launching into, "Steve and Bucky sitting in a tree--" and if they weren't still in sixth grade or maybe if Steve wasn't there, Bucky would probably just flip them off. 

But instead he just breaks away and goes back for his jacket on the other side of the court, flapping his hands at them and saying, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't you have a game to play?"

"They giving you trouble?" Ms. Ebert asks, coming up from behind Steve.

"Nothing we can't handle," Steve says with a grin as Bucky comes back around. "How are the zucchini coming in?"

"A nice harvest of green beans this year," Ms. Ebert says, smiling, "Zucchini's still coming in and we'll have more than enough to split between the helpers. Bucky's been a real help with the weeding."

Bucky touches his elbow as he reaches them and Steve can't help but turn to look at Bucky's face. God he'd missed Bucky.

"I'll try to drop by with the truck next week," Steve says, looking back at Ms. Ebert, "Bucky said you needed help moving some broken furniture out?"

"Oh no, there's no rush. Whenever you're free," she says and waves them away, "Go home. Make Bucky cook you the paella recipe I gave him last week. You look like you could use some food and some rest."

"You alright until the parents come?" Bucky asks.

"Go," she says and Bucky doesn't need any more convincing. It's the twenty-first century and Steve slips his hand into Bucky's, tangling their fingers together for the walk home.

_____

Natasha's cat meets them at the front door as Bucky pushes it open but disappears down the bedroom hallway when she realizes that Steve's there too. "I see Liho's mad at me," Steve says, dropping his bag of dirty laundry and Starktech electronics onto the floor. Maybe he should start a load in the washer. Maybe he should order some Thai.

"You hungry?" Bucky asks, toeing off his shoes.

Steve grins and crowds him up against the wall. "Yes," he says and shuts Bucky's long-suffering groan up with a kiss. Bucky opens his mouth and Steve slides his fingers into Bucky's hair, loosening the bun. Bucky pulls him close and squeezes his ass. They make out in the front hall with their apartment door only halfway shut.

Bucky smells like sweat and earth, tastes like salt when Steve kisses along his stubbly jawline. Bucky pushes his hands into the back of Steve's jeans, skin warmed metal palm against the small of Steve's back. He says, "I gotta shower, pal," but doesn't make any movement to pull away.

Steve kisses the corner of Bucky's smile. "I'll join you."

_____

Liho appears in the living room when they're eating dinner. Bucky seared some marinated salmon before throwing it into the oven and barely managed to disengage himself from Steve on the couch in time to pull it out before it reached overcooked territory. Steve's total contribution to dinner was to squeeze some lemon over arugula. He distracted Bucky from serving the fish by catching Bucky's face in his sticky fingers and kissing him--by the time they finally sat down to eat, the fish had cooled enough that Steve shoved half the filet into his mouth without trouble before slowing down to actually enjoy the food.

Bucky breaks off a bit of the salmon and bends down to hold it out towards Liho. She pads over and licks at the fish a moment before taking delicate bites of it from his fingers.

"This is totally why she likes you more," Steve says, "You spoil her."

"You sound jealous," Bucky says, slanting a grin at him.

"She never gets mad at you when you leave," Steve says, "She doesn't get mad at Natasha and she's gone for months."

"Aw poor Steve," Bucky says to Liho, "He's feeling left out." Liho finishes the salmon and sits, looking up at Bucky. Her tail curls around her front paws and she looks over at Steve. After a few moments and seeing that she's not going to coax more fish from either of them, she gets back to her feet and disappears down the hallway.

Later, when Steve's typing his after action report on the couch and Bucky's playing electroswing in the kitchen where he's cleaning up, Liho leaps up onto the couch next to Steve. She pushes her head under his arm and looks at the tablet for a moment before looking up at Steve expectantly. Of course.

He scratches her ears though. She climbs more fully into his lap and he sets the tablet down on the armrest. She curls up and starts to purr as Steve scratches her neck and under her chin.

"Should I make coffee?" Bucky calls from the kitchen.

Steve looks over at the tablet. He should probably finish the report.

"I'll make it anyway," Bucky says a moment later. Steve shifts so that he's lying on the couch. Liho rises to her feet momentarily only to resettle more comfortably on his stomach. She keeps purring.

He's still petting her ears when Bucky comes in with two mugs of coffee. He sets them on the coffee table and lifts Steve's legs momentarily to slide underneath them. Liho lifts her head to look at Bucky but doesn't stop purring.

"What time do you have to go in tomorrow?" Bucky asks. He picks up Steve's left foot and absently starts to knead it, thumb fitting neatly into the arch. Steve goes a little boneless and possibly a little in danger of falling asleep on the couch.

"Ten," he murmurs. He should probably have some of that coffee and finish up the rest of his report. He also really doesn't want to move.

"Maybe I'll drop by the farmer's market while you're up there," Bucky muses, "Think you'd rather try a rabbit or mussel paella?"

"Yep," Steve says with his eyes closed.

"You're getting old, Rogers," Bucky says, rubbing a thumb over Steve's anklebone. "Too old to be sleeping on couches."

Steve opens his eyes as Bucky lifts Liho off his chest. Liho doesn't even stop purring, just puts her front paws on Bucky's shoulder and nuzzles at Bucky's neck. Yep, she totally loved Bucky the most.

"I should finish this report," Steve says.

"You're going to write maybe another paragraph and then find that the whole thing's totally incomprehensible tomorrow morning." Bucky pushes Steve's legs off the couch and gets up to put Liho on the armchair she liked sleeping in.

"You made me coffee," Steve points out.

"I rescind the coffee," Bucky says.

"Asshole," Steve tells him. 

Bucky just leans down to kiss his cheek and pull him to his feet. "I'll wake you up early."

_____

He wakes once during the night. Steve had long ago become an expert in waking up when Bucky was having his night terrors and Bucky had made a strangled noise. He's tense in the bed next to Steve, his eyes fixed on a point on the far wall, breathing a little fast.

Steve curls his arm around Bucky, movements deliberately slow. He presses his face into Bucky's flesh and blood shoulder, murmuring, "It's okay, there's nothing there, you checked the entire apartment, remember?" over and over until Bucky slowly began to relax. He falls back asleep like that, nose against Bucky's collarbone, hand against Bucky's ribcage.

When Steve wakes up for real, Bucky is casually mouthing Steve's half hard cock through his boxer briefs and grinning wickedly up at him. "Good morning," Bucky tells Steve's dick and Steve groans, partially because _this_ is the shit that he has to deal with on a regular basis, but mostly because he's known Bucky for all ninety-some years of his entire fucking life and he's still hopelessly turned on by anything and everything that Bucky does.

In the shower, Bucky gets jizz in Steve's eye and proceeds to spend five minutes laughing about it after a ten second apology. Steve shuts him up by kissing him aggressively against the tiles until the shower spray cools to lukewarm.

By the time Steve finally finishes his report, it's nearly nine-twenty. Bucky's got extra coffee to go and raspberry scones that apparently he'd baked himself. "There's no way you baked this," Steve says after he bites into one on the way to the subway stop. Bucky's fiddling with his sleeve, making sure that no part of his left arm is visible. It's a little harder for Bucky to blend in during the warmer months.

"Ms. Ebert's daughter gave me the recipe," Bucky says after a few distracted moments.

"This scone is really really good," Steve says seriously, "So I think I rest my case."

Bucky smacks his shoulder. "Asshole," he says, grinning, just as sound of the approaching train reaches a crescendo.

_____

"I guess we have no choice," Steve concludes, staring down at the electronic map on the table. Natasha had wired new information from eastern Europe early in the morning--highly time-sensitive locations for two terror cells with links to HYDRA she'd been hunting for years.

"You know who would be great for this mission?" Tony starts, pivoting around in his chair to look at Steve.

"Yes Tony," Steve says wearily because he doesn't need to be subjected to another two minutes of Tony's weird lust for Bucky's arm. "I know who would be great for this mission."

"I emailed a couple of times about possible upgrades but I don't know if he got the emails," Tony says.

"Yes Tony," Steve says, "We know how to check email."

Tony holds up his hands. "I'm just saying, I don't know why you would turn down free upgrades."

"I'll call him in," Steve says. And to Tony he adds, "Don't bother him about his arm, alright?"

"Alright, alright," Tony says.

_____

"I just bought fresh mussels," Bucky says, sounding disappointed over the phone when Steve tells him he has to gear up. "Well, I hope you like frozen seafood."

"I'll buy you new mussels," Steve says, ignoring the look that Tony's giving him.

Bucky sighs. But when he speaks next, his voice has a clipped edge to it that suggests more Winter Soldier than Bucky Barnes. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes. I assume my arsenal hasn't been touched."

"It's been locked up," Steve assures him. "See you."

_____

It comes out at the most inappropriate of times. 

Bucky had just finished a phone call with Natasha that had been more in Russian than it had been in English. He's methodically hiding his knives away, tightening the straps on his kevlar and checking his pockets for the electromagnetic weapons he carries. There's an intent look on Bucky's face as he runs through an internal checklist that Steve can practically hear in his own head.

"We should get married," Steve says suddenly and immediately feels stupid.

Bucky pauses, fingers stilling on his boots. He looks up at Steve and Steve wishes he could take the words back. They'd been doing so well and Steve didn't even know--didn't want to push Bucky and here he was, fucking proposing without a ring. Without any romance at all--standing in the armory, ten minutes from boarding a quinjet. What the hell was he thinking?

"I mean, if either of us ends up in a civilian hospital--" Steve goes on because he's going to dig his grave as deep as he could and see if he could just fall into the center of the earth. "--we wouldn't have a problem getting access you know? And there are tax benefits, I think. I'm not pushing too fast am I? I think I'm pushing too fast."

"Steve," Bucky says, but he's smiling, "Shut up."

"Forget I said anything," Steve insists.

Bucky gets to his feet and grabs Steve's arms to uncross them. Steve lets himself be backed up against a wall.

"You really want to marry me?" Bucky asks, his face close.

Steve swallows. He can't help the expression on his face or the way that his body instinctively leans into Bucky's--he's known, he's always known. His voice catches the tiniest bit when he says, "I love you."

Bucky kisses him, hand stroking across his cheek. When he pulls away, he grins at Steve. It's starting to look familiar against the Winter Soldier uniform.

"Then I'll buy you a ring," Bucky says.


	3. Arielle - Teen - Steve takes an art class

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve tries to take an art class under a false identity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this amazing premise is all courtesy of [arielle](http://jovaline.tumblr.com/)! i wrote this for her birthday and even though i'm a few days late i hope you like it. happy birthday arielle!!!!  
> if anyone reading this note hasn't seen arielle's gorgeous art, you should [check it out immediately](http://jovaline.tumblr.com/)!! ♥

He sees advertisements for it all the time while taking the train: a student holding her notebook and smiling at the camera, proclaiming in all caps that he too could go back for a degree while working at the same time. _EASY! AFFORDABLE!_ Steve holds on to the railing and looks at the ad for five stops until he has to transfer at Canal St.

It turns up on the sides of buses too, telling him that it's never too late to go back to school and pursue his dreams. Maybe it doesn't really target him any more--these days he mostly dreams of getting even just two weeks off without a crisis happening somewhere--but the more and more he sees the ad, it's like the ghost of an old dream taking a more and more solid form.

He mentions it to Bucky, just once, when they're out to buy burgers for the rooftop barbecue that they're holding for the community center. A bus with one of the ads pulls away from the curb outside the butcher's and Steve says, "I've been thinking about enrolling in an art class."

Bucky leans up against the glass of meat without a care for whatever might have dripped against the case in the past, examining the beef tongues. He doesn't even look up as he says, "You should. Maybe fill up some of those sketchbooks you keep buying and not doing anything with."

"I still draw," Steve protests.

"Pal," Bucky says, "Name the last time you actually sat down and drew something. And doodling on after-action reports doesn't count."

Steve...actually can't. Between the hostage crisis in Luanda and the ongoing reconnaissance in Belarus that Natasha keeps requesting his backup on, Steve can't remember the last time he slept for eight hours in a row, much less had time to sit down with a sketchbook.

"Maybe I'm too busy," Steve concludes after a moment.

Bucky nudges at his ankle, still leaning up against the meat. He smiles at Steve, warm and familiar. Steve resists the urge to lean forward and kiss him because he can see the butcher coming around the corner from the back room with their order.

"If you want it enough," Bucky says, "You'll make time."

_____

Steve mentioned it only once--which is why he almost doesn't notice when an envelope from CUNY shows up among their usual filtered correspondence nearly a month later. The personal assistant that they'd hired on Maria's recommendation half a year ago was usually pretty good at sorting out the spam from real mail--so it's weird that she let something addressed to Grant Stevens, clearly misdelivered, to pass through her screen.

He leaves it on the kitchen table and goes to take a shower. By the time he gets out again, Bucky's back from helping Ms. Ebert haul boxes of canned fruit into the food pantry. He's wearing a muscle tee, still damp at the small of his back from the run back, hair pulled back into a bun as he reaches into the fridge to grab a gatorade.

"Hey," he says, noticing Steve in the doorway. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and steps in for a kiss--Steve tastes the salty sweat of his wrist and the coolness of the refrigerator--before Bucky smiles against his mouth and pulls away. He turns back towards the fridge and says, "What do you want for dinner?"

"You," Steve says without thinking.

"Actual food, I mean," Bucky says without missing a beat, looking at the remains of their groceries from two weekends ago. Too many missions in the intervening weeks--and Steve was a little ashamed to admit that when Bucky left for his solo missions, Steve had the tendency to hang out at Avengers tower and eat all the awful takeout Tony liked to get. After all, Steve was usually stuck there catching up on paperwork so why not, right?

"We could go out if you're hungry," Bucky says, shutting the fridge and looking up at Steve, "I'd just have to take a shower first."

"No," Steve says, "Let's make something. I can make it if you're tired. I think I defrosted some chicken breast yesterday."

"Pasta?" Bucky asks, lighting up, "Are the peas still good?"

"If they're not, I think we still have frozen peas," Steve says, moving to pull a pot from the cupboard.

"I've been using that bag for my sprains," Bucky informs him, shuffling through the mail on the table. "Oh, your letter from Hunter College came."

"My letter?" Steve asks, "I never applied."

"I know," Bucky says, "I had a feeling you wouldn't so I asked Pepper to help me help you apply. I thought it might be easier for you to go under an alias so I asked her to procure some documents. You know, so that you graduated in 2001 instead of 1938."

"You applied to college for me," Steve repeats, affection edging out momentary irritation.

"I sent them a fake transcript and told them that Grant Stevens might be interested in taking non-degree seeking classes next semester," Bucky corrects, "If Grant Stevens never registered for any classes, and never showed up for any classes, no big deal. You don't have to go, Steve, I just figured you wouldn't make a move since you seem to think you have a responsibility to spend every waking moment saving babies or something."

"You lied to college admissions and gave me the alias of Grant Stevens," Steve says, " _Grant Stevens._ "

"Christ Steve, I'm not creative, okay?" Bucky says, spreading his hands, "That's your job, remember?"

But Steve laughs, crowding Bucky in against the table until Bucky has no choice but to kiss back, smiling.

_____

His first day of ARTCR221, he spends the entire walk from the subway stop to finding the classroom repeating his own name to himself, _Grant Stevens, Grant Stevens,_ so that by the time he has to introduce himself to the other students, maybe it'd actually come naturally to him. He takes a seat at a table at the corner of the classroom on the same side as the door--what he hopes is the most unobtrusive corner.

"Hi," the woman sitting at the same table says when he sits down, "I'm Felicia."

"Grant Stevens," Steve says automatically before backtracking, "Grant. Sorry. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too," she says, smiling at him, "Are you coming back to school too?"

"I've uh, never been," Steve admits.

"First time for everything," she says, "This is my first art class. I've always loved drawing but I never really thought that I could do it professionally. But then I thought, why the hell not, you know?"

"My first art class too," Steve tells her.

"I'm sorry, I bet you get this a lot," Felicia says, "But has anyone told you that you look a lot like--?"

"All the time," Steve says, laughing nervously, "My name doesn't help either."

"I just had to say it," Felicia says, lifting her hands, "But hey, out of the celebrity lookalike lottery, I gotta say that you've definitely picked the winning numbers."

Steve smiles awkwardly, unsure what to say.

"Joseph," the boy who sits down says, interrupting the lull that had followed the last of Felicia's words. "I hear Professor Swaminathan's the easiest of the five sections so we definitely picked the right class."

"Felicia," Felicia says.

"Grant," Steve says.

Joseph doesn't even take a second look at Steve, just pulls his phone from his back pocket. Felicia glances over at Steve, lifting her eyebrows and smiling as if to say _millenials, huh?_

Their fourth table member doesn't show up until five minutes into Professor Swaminathan's introduction, clutching a map in one hand. "Sorry," she whispers at them as she takes a seat down next to Steve and turns back around to look at the professor, who hadn't even paused in her speech about the syllabus.

"Monica," she introduces herself later, when they're supposed to be drawing basic shapes into their newly-issued sketchbooks. "First time in the city," she adds, "I keep getting lost. I know it's a grid system but I'm really not good with directions."

"GPS," Joseph recommends sagely.

"I uh," she pulls out an old Nokia--the same model that Steve had adamantly stuck with before his work with SHIELD forced a smartphone on him.

"Good lord," Joseph says, "Those still exist in the wild?"

"Do you have a problem with my phone?" Monica asks, eyes narrowing.

"No," Joseph says, taken aback, "But like, how do you survive without GPS or Uber?"

"I've managed so far," she says.

"I kind of preferred my old Nokia to what I have now," Steve says.

"Thank you," Monica says, gesturing and pausing.

"Grant," Steve supplies.

"Thank you Grant," Monica says and smiles at him.

"Y'all are crazy," Jospeh says, shaking his head.

_____

"How'd it go?" Bucky asks from his spot on the couch when Steve opens the front door. Steve sets his new sketchbook on the dining room table and leans over the back of the sofa for a kiss.

"I learned how to draw circle," Steve says.

"Wow," Bucky says, moving his legs so that Steve can sit next to him. Steve puts his head on Bucky's shoulder, careful of the joint. "Maybe I should have taken this class too. Sounds like it's right about my pace."

"Gotta learn the basics before tackling the hard stuff," Steve says, "You were right about the stubble by the way."

"No one expects Captain America to have a beard," Bucky agrees. Steve rubs his jaw against Bucky's collarbone just to prove a point. Bucky sticks his tongue in Steve's ear just to retaliate.

"Sexy," Steve deadpans, wiping saliva from his ear.

"Sexy," Bucky agrees. In a flash, he has Steve pinned down on the couch, straddling his waist, wrists against the armrest. He leans down grinning and Steve can't help but to arch into Bucky, suddenly wanting. Bucky leans down, lips barely touching Steve's so that the words barely brush his mouth. "The sexiest."

"You're awful," Steve whispers back, but his words hitch a bit and he really wants Bucky to take off all his clothes--so what he probably means is the complete opposite.

Bucky just smiles and kisses him for real.

_____

A month into sitting at the same table with each other, watching Monica and Joseph warm up to each over after their initial rocky start, Monica corners Steve after class and asks him if he wants to get coffee before heading home.

"I uh," Steve says, "Look Monica, I'm really sorry if I misled you or anything but I'm married."

"I know," Monica says, "You fiddle with your wedding ring every time Professor Swaminathan spends longer than five minutes lecturing. Joseph, Felicia, and I are gonna go to the coffeeshop around the corner to just chill for an hour or something and it wouldn't be right if we didn't invite you too."

Which is how he finds himself with a tiny caramel macchiato, squeezed on the same small couch with Joseph and Monica because it's almost always impossible to find seating in the cafe without waiting for fifteen minutes and glaring at the other patrons.

"Grant," Joseph says, "I've been meaning to ask. What's your facebook, man?"

Steve thinks about the facebook page that PR maintains for him. "I don't have one."

"Told you," Monica says.

"No facebook?" Joseph says, "Man, you're seriously a man of mystery aren't you? Barely talk in class, no facebook, probably no twitter, no instagram."

"You don't need all of those to be a fully functional human being," Felicia says, rolling her eyes before looking at Steve. "He's got a point though. You don't really talk about yourself, Grant."

"I'm boring," Steve says.

"Convince us you're not a sociopath," Joseph says, propping his chin on his hands.

"Joseph!" Monica says, kicking his leg. "I don't think you're a sociopath," she adds, looking around Joseph at Steve.

"I'm honestly really boring," Steve says, wishing he'd come up with some sort of backstory for Grant Stevens. Where did he work? What didn't require a college degree these days?

"What do you do during the day?" Felicia asks.

"I'm--" Steve tries to think quick and ends up with, "--unemployed."

"That's rough man," Joseph says, "And when you finish your degree, you can be highly educated and unemployed."

"Joseph," Monica says again, kicking his leg in the same exact spot. "We are not going to be unemployed."

"The economy," Joseph says, nodding knowingly.

"There's no shame in being unemployed," Felicia says, ignoring them, "Things are rough for everyone right now."

"My husband supports me," Steve says on a whim.

"Holy shit," Joseph says, "Are you a trophy husband? Do you have tips on how I can meet rich older women?"

"Can't help you on that front," Steve says, and before he can stop himself, he adds, "We were childhood friends."

"Worth a shot," Joseph says, looking back down at his phone. "I guess I could wait to see if any of my friends get rich from their retail jobs."

"What about you?" Steve says, looking at Felicia.

"Divorced," Felicia says, "Better off for it. Are we ever gonna meet your husband?"

"Maybe," Steve says, even though he knows they never will.

_____

In the quinjet, halfway over Argentina, Steve tries to lay down a rough sketch of the drawing he's supposed to do for Thursday's assignment. Clint watches him, sorting through his remaining arrows before he eventually moves to sit down next to Steve and says, "So I hear you conned your way into an art class?"

"Bucky conned my way into an art class," Steve says, "Though I guess there's not much of a difference, huh?"

"What're you drawing?"

Steve erases a stray line. "I still remember this ruined church in World War II. All the corners standing but like someone had come along and punched all the walls out." Steve puts the pencil to his sketchbook again but the quinjet hits a sudden bout of turbulence and the tip skids into a scattering of stray marks.

"We're doing a unit on drawing buildings," Steve says.

"Might be easier if you had the building in front of you," Clint points out.

Steve smiles and keeps his eyes on his sketchbook. "Might be easier if I didn't have to be on call all the time."

_____

He misses both Tuesday and Thursday thanks to a training initiative he was supposed to lead on Fury's last minute request. He emails Professor Swaminathan his assignments for both days after checking each photo for any stray weapons or suggestion that Grant Stevens was anything other than the unemployed trophy husband he'd somehow talked himself into becoming. She emails back a copy of the syllabus with the absences section highlighted and writes that he can't miss any more classes or she'll have to start docking his grade.

"We missed you last week," Monica says when he shows up the following Tuesday.

"Got really awful food poisoning," Steve says, even though he hasn't been sick since before--yeah.

"Ooo, it wasn't that falafel food truck on 72nd was it?" Monica asks, "Because my friend keeps getting food poisoning from that truck and she keeps going back and I just don't understand how she doesn't learn."

"No," Steve says, and even as he says it, he knows that Bucky would kill him if he heard, "My husband prepared some bad sushi."

"Ooo," she says, wincing, "Leave that to the professionals, I'd say. What's his name?"

He should really make up a name--hell he's going through a list of possible names that he might actually remember when he hears himself say, "James."

"Is James going to come on our trip to the Met next month?"

"Probably not," Steve says, "His job keeps him really busy, even on the weekends."

"That's a shame," Monica says, "I was thinking about bringing my friend with me but it'd probably be weird if she was the only one not in our class. It'd probably be too awkward."

Steve thinks about Bucky and crowds these days--how he'd go silent and assessing, always one step slightly behind Steve as if intent on watching his back. "It'd probably be even more awkward if James showed up," he offers, "But you should bring your friend anyway. I'm sure we'd all be friendly enough."

"Yeah, maybe," she says. Steve smiles at her before turning towards the front of the classroom and almost misses the thoughtful look she gives him.

But if she suspects, she doesn't say anything at all.

_____

Steve's been looking forward to figure drawing ever since he enrolled in ARTCR221--which means, of course, that he misses class on the day that the live model comes thanks to a resurgence of HYDRA activity on the far outskirts of Berlin. Bucky gets partnered with him partially because he'd been inside the base at some point as the Winter Soldier, partially because he's ruthless enough to get the job done. Or rather--Steve gets partnered with Bucky because he's the one most likely capable of bringing Bucky back to himself if the circumstances warrant.

By the time they finish draining the servers of any relevant information and rigging the explosives around the terminal, Steve calls for the quinjet location. Fifty yards away from the bunker and into the woods towards where they're supposed to be picked up, the bombs go off--the billowing flame briefly hot against their backs. Bucky looks at him with a grin on his face and bumps into his shoulder, saying, "Just like old times, huh?"

The familiar sharp scent of pine and smoke, Bucky moving in step next to him, the way that the trees formed silhouettes against the dimming sky--if Steve closed his eyes and let everything fall away, he could almost trick himself into thinking--

_____

He tries to make up for missing the live model session with a drawing of Bucky--elbows on his knees, looking off to the left where the pilot was relating some story about the last mission he'd flown over Germany. It's a Bucky from seventy years ago--no metal arm, the old uniform that Steve had drawn a hundred times and still remembers to this day--even if some things like the faint smile on his face still remains the same.

It feels like pulling on an old coat, slipping into old familiar steps.

On Thursday, they're supposed to be drawing faces from photographs. Steve flips through an old National Geographic before settling on a woman with her face half turned away from the camera, caught in the middle of speaking. Steve draws, adds in curls, changes the nose, shades in the lips in some approximation of lipstick until he's looking at Peggy without consciously having meant to draw her at all.

An advertisement of a group of people standing around a car in a desert turns into the Howling Commandos standing around a campfire. A photograph of an ancient roman statue without a head turns into Bucky--a mottled scar from a knife fight gone wrong, two scars from bullet wounds. And again and again from no photograph at all, the faint impressions of memories: the dashboard of his own wartime motorcycle, Peggy straightening out the line of her stockings, Gabe throwing his head back to laugh. Peggy giving him that half amused look with her lips curved up in a smile, Peggy telling off an entire regiment vaguely shaded in, arms crossed over her chest with the straight line of her back. And over and over, the shape of Bucky's wrist, the slant of his shoulders with his hair tied up, the way he'd actually lift his arms and yell at the television screen during March Madness.

He'd turned it all in. And maybe he through his drawing skills weren't up to par, that nobody would be able to read anything into it, but well. He probably should have been expecting it all the same.

_____

The New York Post picks it up first: _Captain America Attends Hunter College_.

 _"I accidentally came across his sketchbook and it was just really obvious,"_ the anonymous source was quoted as saying. There are low-res cameraphone images of some of the more obvious sketches. Steve doesn't even get word of it until two days after the headline breaks, after People tentatively writes a small article about it and Buzzfeed picks it up. The moment he gets back from the field, he scrolls through Bucky's increasingly outraged texts before reaching Pepper's calm inquiry as to whether or not he'd like to release a public statement or if he'd like to write personally to the CUNY board.

 _I'll write the school myself,_ he texts back from the quinjet, _PR can decide what to say on my behalf._

"Hey," Bucky says when he picks up the phone, "Did you get my texts? Are you back?"

"Not yet. I got your texts," Steve says, "No need to hunt anyone down."

A pause, then Bucky sighs. "I'm sorry pal."

Steve wishes he was home already so he could let himself be pulled into a hug. "It's okay," he says, "It was bound to happen sooner or later."

_____

_I'm sorry to hear about your recent suspension from Hunter,_ the email from Professor Swaminathan begins, _Although I have a great deal of sympathy and understanding for why you would want to conceal your identity, unfortunately, I cannot go against the wishes of administration. I will do my best in assisting in the investigation of who leaked the drawings of your sketchbook to the press. You are undeniably talented as an artist, especially with respect to drawing figures and faces. If you ever enroll at Hunter again, I would be delighted to have you in my section._

_____

Thursday night, Steve's stuck at Avengers tower for a meeting that had run two hours longer than expected. By the time he gets out, Bucky's already texted about leaving dinner on the kitchen counter and going to sleep at nine PM. Steve's in the middle of texting back an old man joke when the receptionist downstairs says into his earpiece, "Captain Rogers, you have three visitors who refuse to leave."

Steve touches his earpiece. "Who are they?"

"They say they're from your art class," she says, "They've insisted on waiting for you for over an hour now. Should I tell them to leave?"

"No," Steve says, turning back around to head towards the main elevators, "I'll come down now."

In the elevator, he looks at his own reflection. He'd been expecting to be called out on a mission which Fury had cancelled during the too-long meeting, so he's wearing his Captain America uniform, complete with shield on his back. Great.

When the elevator doors open and he steps out into the lobby, Monica jumps to her feet and says, "We think it's one of the other TA's," at the same time that Joseph looks him up and down and says, "Damn."

"Hi," Steve says.

"Hi Grant," Felicia says, "Or Mr. Rogers. Captain Rogers. Captain America."

"Steve's fine," Steve assures them.

"We just wanted you to know for sure that it wasn't any of us," Monica says earnestly, "I mean we all knew, but we would never ever do that to you."

"What do you mean you all knew?" Steve asks.

"Steve, honey," Felicia says, "You can't just grow a beard and expect us not to recognize you."

"Grant Stevens?" Joseph points out, "You couldn't come up with something better than your middle name and your first name?"

"Your childhood best friend turned husband, named James," Monica adds.

"Refusal to start a facebook even though I've hinted at it like, fifty times," Joseph says.

"We don't even need to start on your sketchbook," Felicia finishes.

Steve raises his hands helplessly.

"But we'll figure out who did," Monica says, "And if it's the TA we think it is, we'll make sure they get fired." 

"You really don't have to," Steve says, "It's okay. I figure it'd happen sooner or later. Don't feel like you should go to all of the trouble."

"But we want to," Monica says firmly.

"You're our friend," Felicia says.

Steve hasn't had a lot of experience with making friends--he'd always been better at pointing out when other people were behaving obnoxiously and subsequently getting his ass kicked. And especially in this new era--between Sam and Natasha and Ms. Ebert, he could probably count the total number of friends he'd made in the 21st century on two hands.

He smiles at them, feeling touched. "Thank you."

They smile back and they all stand there in the lobby, awkwardly beaming at each other until Joseph says, "Okay, before we go--" He holds up his cell phone, "--we're not leaving without a selfie."

_____

It's a nice Saturday in late November, comparatively speaking. It'd snowed hard the night before even though the sun's out now--not long enough to melt the fluff into disgusting city slush.

They swing by Steve's favorite coffee shop in Midtown to order sticky buns and coffee before heading uptown. Bucky takes off his gloves to eat the pastry--metal gleaming in the late morning light. It's taken years for Bucky to get to this point, casually showing his arm in public and no longer caring much what complete strangers thought of the winter soldier.

Bucky's eaten his entire sticky bun and half of Steve's by the time they reach the Met. Steve doesn't really mind--he's fine with coffee and Bucky's always had a bigger sweet tooth anyway. He'll probably just get something from the cafe inside later and resign himself to letting Bucky steal half of that too.

He spots Felicia's bright red coat among the crowd gathered on the steps of the Met. Monica's the first to spot him back and waves at them.

"Hi," he says when he catches up to them. Bucky tucks his hands into his jacket, smiling politely. "This is Bucky," he says, gesturing. "Bucky, this is Monica, Felicia, and Joseph."

"Hi!" Monica says, sticking her hand out. Bucky shakes it, then Joseph's. "We've heard a lot about you," Monica adds.

"Really?" Bucky says, glancing at Steve, "Me or the boyfriend Steve probably made up?"

"Let's get into the museum," Steve says, "You know, enjoy some art."

As they go up the stairs, he hears Joseph ask, "So what's it like having Captain America as a trophy husband?"

And without missing a beat--even when Steve turns around to look at him and attempt to come up with some excuse--Bucky grins and says, "Well you know I only keep him around because he's pretty."


End file.
